The ShortList Logo Challenge

To celebrate issue 300 we asked designers, artists and readers for their take on the ShortList logo. Here are the results, with explanations from the visionaries

(Images courtesy of the respective designers)

D*Face

Pop-influenced street artist

The Londoner designed ShortList its very own piece of running graffiti, as sprayed by a skeleton. Of course.

Vivienne Westwood

British fashion legend

“Climate Revolution is the only means towards a sound economy. When the public switches on to this fact we will win.”

Owen Gildersleeve

British designer, specialising in paper illustrations

“I took inspiration from the Selene spacecraft, which launched in September 2007 – the same month ShortList began. The spacecraft orbited the moon for a year and eight months.”

Pure Evil

Graffiti artist

“I wanted a punk rock/‘I don’t care too much’ spirit. The parts are from artworks in the gallery (pureevil.me).”

Viz

In its creators’ words, “Britain’s fourth funniest magazine”

“It occurred to us that traditional British comic characters – like real people – want to wear jumpers and shirts with the initial letters of their Christian names emblazoned on the chest. And this got us thinking – to mark ShortList’s anniversary, could we spell out the title using be-sweatered Viz cartoon characters standing in a line? Sadly, no. The only suitably-clad two were Terry F*ckwitt and Mr Logic. So we decided the remaining letters would be made from the initials of other personnel.”

Formalina

Polish graphic designer, specialising in textile design

“I thought it would be funny to ‘warm up’ the image of the magazine – that’s why I knitted my illustration. It’s kitschy and eye-catching.”

Katie Eary

Exciting new fashion menswear designer

“I approached the brief in the way ShortList approaches each weekly mag. I worked on 10 at the same time, creating my own ShortList using all past, present and future Katie Eary prints, judging which is most stylish, entertaining, cool and current.”

Jean Paul Gaultier

Legendary fashion designer

Tommy Hilfiger

American design icon

His people told us: “Tommy played with an optical illusion. The ShortList logo seems invisible when you look at it close up, but when you move the paper further away, the logo appears.”

Jimmy Choo

Iconic shoe brand

Sandra Choi, creative director, says: “At first glance it looks like a classic camouflage print, but when you look closely a naughtier side is revealed with the silhouettes of burlesque ladies.”

Ben Turnbull

British pop artist, creator of our past wooden gun cover

"I’m currently working on cut-up comic poison pen letters (à la Zodiac), so here’s one for ShortList!”

Dan Baldwin

Multimedia artist, whose fans include Damien Hirst

“I wanted to create the logo in a Baldwin style – it turned into a painting. My work is full of symbolism and colour – as is this.“

Paul Normandale

Production designer for bands including The Stone Roses and Kings Of Leon

“For this, I imagined a latterday punk band of new romantics, who were playing soul in a scrapyard full of a thousand headlamps.”

Jonathan Saunders

Top menswear designer

“I wanted to inject energy by adding synthetic colour and digital Eighties prints – a key reference in my spring/summer 2014 collection”.

Ben Huggins

Brit furniture designer

“A tangible object melting to nothing – and leaving no evidence of its previous form while retaining its chemical composition – is surely the ultimate design objective.”

Gustav Troger

German artist known as Mirrorman, recently seen in Arcade Fire’s Reflektor video

“You take the Design Dummy in your hands and scrunch it up into a ball. You throw it into a trash can. You take it out of the trash can and smooth the final design.”

Ben Garvie

Creator of photorealistic digital art

“Food imagery is subject to fashion, obsession, science and technology, and remains an ever-evolving fascination. I try to access that universal tactile experience and bring it into the design.”

Reader Entry

We also asked ShortList readers to re-design the logo. On receiving so many great designs, picking just one was tough, but we loved this retro gaming graphic by Dan Allen.